Welsh Heroes

Welsh Heroes: Original Digital Illustrations by Benjy Davies

Benjy Davies kindly gave us permission to share these images from his Welsh Heroes collection inspired by the results of Culturenet Cymru's "100 Welsh Heroes" online poll. To see the layers used to create the images, and to read more about his process and the heroes themselves, visit the Gallery. For instance, the Dylan Thomas image above includes landscape images and manuscripts, as well as Thomas himself.





Sir Richard Burton, a great admirer of Thomas' work and of course very fine actor, performed Under Milk Wood many times, and brought along Liz Taylor as Rosie Probert.






David Lloyd George served as Prime Minister of Great Britain from 1916-1922, the only Welshmen to hold the office. He was "widely credited with ending the First World War, and setting up infrastructure and procedures that contributed to winning the Second World War."

Robert Owen, an industrialist and social reformer, fought to improve the “dark, satanic mills”of the Industrial Age, and in his 1816 "A New View of Society," espoused a plan for cooperative villages, which inspired the founding of New Harmony, Indiana, among others.








Phil Campbell has been both guitarist of the heavy metal group Motorhead, and a Minister of Health and Labor Party leader.









For close to twenty years, in the 13th century, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd "ruled a united Wales, and briefly, it appeared that Wales would achieve an independent national status. As history turned, it did not work out that way."





Rowan Williams, despite his outspokenness "against nuclear proliferation, the Iraq war, the over-dependence of the free market as a governing force, and in favor of the ordination of women," and particularly about homosexuality, became the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury in 2002.







Sir Anthony Hopkins has directed Under Milk Wood and played First Voice. He once performed in Strindberg's The Dance of Death as Olivier's understudy, and Olivier said “He walked away with the role like a cat with a mouse between its teeth”.

This exhibition was sponsored by the Madog Center for Welsh Studies at the University of Rio Grande in Rio Grande Ohio. http://madog.rio.edu/.